Around our gray formica tablemother managed the roast beef and mashed potatoesbut father presidedthudding his limping frame into the only chair with armsbooming out his gratitude for another fine dayand for his wife’s fine home-cooking:“I’ve dined in Rome, in Paris, but never had beef as fine yours, Thelma”Eventually his piercing gray eyes turn to me:“Ruthie, how’s your right arm?”meaning I was to fetch his second cup of coffee.“What did you learn in school today?”meaning I would be fetching the dictionary, the encyclopedia, the atlas.I said that today we talked about Communism.Thelma’s temples throb at the mention of the word.She’s mad about Miss Welch calling Miss White a Communist.She’s mad at Nixon calling Helen Gahagan Douglaspink down to her underwear.She’s mostly mad at McCarthy calling everybody red,what he did to Annie Lee Moss,a name that sixty years later lights up my brain in neon with injustice.But she’s spittin’ mad at the stupid American electoratewho voted these scoundrels into office.“I’m not sure I believe in democracy.There’s a lot to be said for a good king.”Father croons and soothes: “Now dear, we’ve lived through Harding.We’ve lived through Coolidge. We can live through this.”But father died in 1988. He never had to live through this,never had to concede that this time his wife had won the argument,big time.

In times of encroachingAuthoritarianism,One of the only safeguardsWe have to protect democracyIs the fourth estate,Unless it too is compromisedBy corporate interests orTakes the form ofPartisan propaganda masqueradingAs news in order to perpetuateA one-sided brutal agendaPortending calamity.